this is not a social equality issue. (Destiny)

by Vortech , A Fourth Wheel, Sunday, April 03, 2016, 23:01 (3249 days ago) @ breitzen

Parallels in consumer protection laws? Not many of which I am aware.

In general US law is in favor of not price fixing (History from the Anti-Trust movement) and prefers the Market to set pricing through competition. The exceptions generally center around areas where the consumer has no alternatives (monopolies and antitrust laws), where the Government has tampered with the ecosystem (Public entities, charters, and grants of public funds), or where the supply and demand is so out of whack that it leads to exorbitant pricing for necessary public goods (Price gouging, Disasters and states of emergency, times when negotiation is not done in good faith, at arms length, etc.).

It's usually not phrased that way, but ironically, social equality can sometimes lead to legally mandated pricing equality (Fair housing acts, non-discrimination acts) but those are usually measuring equality across a single product (do they price things depending on who the customer is as an individual regarding a protected classification like Age, sex, Race, religion, etc.) not across the horizontal (measuring price equality between companies or products.)